Ind-E-Focus

Since the 14th March and carrying on right through until the 29th, Saddler’s Wells hosts an exciting festival of Spanish dancing. Here, Jan Fairley from the Guardian discusses two of the performers; their strength as they rose to become two of the most influential Flamenco dancers in a country that not so long ago, was extensively dominated by male influences.

As the annual festival of Spanish dance opens at Sadler's Wells, Jan Fairley traces the rise of two passionate performers: Eva Yerbabuena and Estrella Morente.

When Eva María García was 12, she tore a page out of her school notebook and, using a red pen, wrote to the King and Queen of Spain. In the letter, Garcia explained that her parents had hit upon hard times and could no longer afford her flamenco classes; she asked if the royals might help, as she did not want to stop dancing.

King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía did not quite oblige: instead, they sent two civil guards round to her family home in Granada. Having ascertained that they had a roof over their heads, and an old car to boot, Eva was judged ineligible for a royal educational grant. Luckily, Eva's own teacher took her on to tutor younger dancers in payment for her own lessons. Within two years, Garcia's first professional engagement saw her touring Italy with a company of flamenco artists, confirming what she describes as "my obsession to learn from others as well as introduce ideas from inside myself". Today, known as Eva Yerbabuena, she is one of flamenco and Spain's top dancer-choreographers, playing to packed houses from Buenos Aires to Paris.

In the Albaícin quarter of Granada at more or less the same time, another girl, Estrella Morente, was learning flamenco. Her circumstances were somewhat different: the daughter of flamenco iconoclast Enrique Morente and dancer Aurora Carbonell, she could probably clap the compás rhythms of flamenco before she could even talk. Morente grew up singing and dancing with her cousins, as assorted famous uncles played guitar for her, and she went on to become a gifted dancer and singer. Knowing everything by heart, she is able to choose instinctively which of the complex coded flamenco forms (called palos) is appropriate for different moments.

Married to Javier Conde, one of Spain's top bullfighters, and still under 30, Morente embodies the new generation of dancers who – unlike their mothers who gave up work when they had their families – are determined to manage both career and family. This week she will bring her show Mujeres (Women) to London. It celebrates international role models such as Edith Piaf and the strong women of Morente's grandmother's generation who, she explains, "led their families through the war". For Morente, "their strength inspires me. They fought to be themselves through their art."

Morente is probably best known in the UK for singing Penélope Cruz's parts in Pedro Almodóvar's film, Volver. Her delicate, nightingale-like trill has revived the style of Pastora Pavón, known as La Niña de los Peines (The Girl of the Combs), a touchstone for all flamenco women. In many ways, Pavón (who died in 1969) was the first flamenco feminist.

A child star by the age of 13, she married singer Pepe Pinto, and together they travelled the world. While they often performed in the same shows, Pavón was far more famous. Wherever she went, Pinto was always by her side – a solicitous chaperone, for this was early 20th-century Spain when traditional gender roles were strong. Pavón still broke the mould and blazed a trail for future flamenco artists – in southern Spanish Andaluz gypsy culture, women rarely sang or danced outside the immediate family: until that point, only widows, old maids and prostitutes made a career of flamenco.

By contrast, Yerbabuena has looked to outside influences for inspiration – in particular, the modernist German choreographer Pina Bausch. From Bausch, she has taken, Yerbabuena says, "the need to explore what lies inside, of the complexity of realizing oneself as a woman". She continues, "There has been a lot of machismo in Spanish society, and in flamenco too. By necessity that has changed."

Yerbabuena's new show Lluvia (Rain) has just opened Spain's flagship flamenco festival in Jerez, long the home of flamenco. She, too, will be appearing at Sadler's Wells, with her touring show, Signs and Wonders. As such, London can look forward to witnessing a spectacular array of innovative performances from women who lead their own companies.

 (Source: Guardian.co.uk - Clap eyes on flamenco's leading ladies by Jan Fairley)